Letâs stop pretending: this isnât about reverence for the dead. This is about powerânaked, unvarnished, undignified powerâand a society so intoxicated by bureaucracy, so in love with its own dysfunction, that it is willing to desecrate its collective soul just to win another skirmish in the political mud pit.
Mourners, some clutching their hearts in grief, some still hoping for closure, were left standing. Not standing in respect, but in shameâas the courts spat in the face of tradition, as politicians bickered over the corpse of a nationâs past leader. And before you reach for that feeble defenseâ'But we are a nation of laws!'âask yourself: when did laws become the chains we use to handcuff the very rituals that make us human?
Nobody wants to say it, but hereâs the ugly truth: the former Zambian presidentâs funeral was never about honoring a life. It became a twisted proxy war, a grotesque puppet show in which the strings of litigation, ego, and historical bitterness yanked even the dead from peace. Our so-called respect for the departed? It is conditional. Conditional on political expediency, on legal technicalities, on the manufactured outrage of whichever side gets the most camera time. This is not mourning; itâs hostage-taking.
Feel disgusted. You should. Because youâthe citizen, the bystanderâare not innocent. Every time you sigh and say, 'Thatâs just the way things are,' you become a foot soldier in the army of apathy. You tolerate a society where the living cannot even offer the dead a final moment of dignity because everyone is too busy plotting their next move, too busy scanning for power shifts, too numbed by precedent to see the horror of this breakdown. Deep down, you know this: When we interrupt the rites of our dead, we are declaring that no oneâliving or deceasedâis safe from the machinery of greed and retribution that defines our politics.
Are you angry yet? Good. Now do something about it. Demand better. Demand that the dead, at least, be delivered from the petty squabbles of the living. Face it: until we do, every funeral is a mirror, reflecting back the smirking faces of our own hypocrisy.
This article was inspired by the headline: 'Mourners left waiting as court orders halt to former Zambian presidentâs funeral'.
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